Falling, With Style
Posted on Mon Jul 22nd, 2019 @ 11:40pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Reave & Mentis
Edited on on Thu Oct 3rd, 2019 @ 11:31pm
4,242 words; about a 21 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter V: Unbound
Location: In flight above Korriban, Horuset system
Timeline: Late Korriban Day 3 (1,218 ABY)
OLD
“There was never any turning back,” Mentis lowered his eyebrows as he glared at the displays that now blared, “Let’s do this, Rex.”
Leaving behind a trail of Doonium-Xesh dust, the radiation-soaked Janna sped forwards once again, weaving out of the asteroid belt and towards the glinting orange light of Korriban.
NEW
Janna’s engines were running silently as the ship practically drifted towards the outer atmosphere of the dusty Sith homeworld. Once they had come into close proximity of the planet, Rex had taken them down to minimal power so that they had barely more thrust than a lone asteroid hurtling through the void of space, which was exactly what they were hoping to appear as if anyone planned on scanning their approach.
Had any of the main systems been operating, they might have caught the sudden appearance of a sleek black yacht emerging from hyperspace and weaving its way towards the station on the other side of the planet. But it was only when the pull of Korriban’s gravity began to rock the old Crosswave-class vessel that the smuggler kicked back on the non-essential systems.
The darkness of space began to melt away as they delved down through the high atmosphere, to be replaced with a bronze sky that highlighted just how much radioactive dust the ship had picked up in the asteroid belt. Little sparks began to ignite on the hull as the dust burned away with the heat of re-entry until the glass was once again clear to view the approaching surface of rocky mountain ranges and arid plains.
The trio in the cockpit had been queerly silent since their departure from the asteroid field, their moods cooled by their last conversation and their deep focus on the task at hand. "It's a big enough planet, Mantis," Rex said, breaking the silence. "Where exactly are you wanting me to take us? The whole dust-bowl's a maze of ruins and mountains, as far as the comp's telling me."
The Rattataki closed his eyes and felt the planet. It was not what he had expected; there was a darkness here, different to the one he had felt for most of his adult life under the shadow of Axion. There was an old, incredibly deep connection to the dark side that went beyond those primal drives for power and glory: the dark side shaped all life here for good and for bad.
He found the signature within the Force that he sought, “They are here, but we will need to travel further: to a great valley on the eastern continent.”
Rex stared awkwardly at his pale companion for a few moments, with Reave apparently sharing a similar sentiment, but the Human concluded his thought with a small shrug, trusting in whatever Mentis had decided. However, even after Rex had made the necessary adjustments and set their trans-global course, his expression remained uncharacteristically stony. Even though their journey to Korriban had already been pockmarked by a few serious moments from the Tatooinian smuggler, his entire visage was dragged downwards in grave concern. Even his own dark and tanned skin seemed a few shades paler than the norm.
"I have a bad feeling about this," he stated, eyes locked beyond the viewscreen at the foreboding orange sky and sandy mountain ranges beyond as they rapidly closed the distance to Mentis' described destination. "This place..." Rex visibly shuddered. "I... I dunno."
“These ‘bad feelings’ you seem to get,” Mentis commented drily, still with his eyes closed and concentrating on the planet, “Perhaps they impress people that don’t actually have precognitive abilities, but I think you aught to trust me on this one. This is the right way.”
Rex frowned, looking scolded and little bit hurt. "Hey, I think I've done a fine job of trustin' you so far, wouldn't you say? A few gambits on the Smuggler's Moon is one thing, a little rescue mission to save a Jawa from an upright bodybuilding shark is also another, but this? Jumping straight into the jaws of a mystical death cult's little war with space wizards murder laser swords is somethin-"
The ship suddenly lurched off to one side, wrenching each of the crew sharply to the left. Beyond the cockpit, the sun-and-sand view of the sky and canyons was spinning in all directions as the Janna struggled to correct itself, and a great groaning echoed about the entire ship. Brick shrilled a typical astromech's squeal as he failed to protect himself from crashing into two of the four surfaces of the cockpit, whilst Reave clenched his glowing eyes shut, his hat held firmly to his head as he screamed in-tune with Brick.
"Kriff and kark!" Rex shouted over the din of the various alarms blaring throughout his ship, but his next curses were drowned out by another heavy blast crashing into the Janna. This time, several panels exploded all about them, little fires sparking to life within various conduits and computers. Now, the view beyond the port was not of the sky and ground swapping places, but firmly of the canyons below, as they grew dangerously larger and larger - and closer.
"We're in free-fall!" The Human called, panic-stricken.
Mentis’ eyes shot open and he grabbed the seat in front of him for support, both due to the sudden increase in gravity from the physical impact and also from the sudden lurch of fear that gripped him, “Are we being attacked?” he cried, before adding in a whisper, “They have found me…”, though inaudible over the noise of the damaged craft.
The klaxons and high-pitched screeching that accompanied their death dive towards the ground of Korriban forced Rex to shout even louder to be heard, his hands frantically pulling at various levers and controls in an effort to regain control over the Janna. "I don't know!" He managed to shout in reply. "The sensors ain't telling me nothing!"
But the Rattataki was dazed, his eyes staring blankly as Axion’s grip seemed to tighten around him. He felt like he was already being punished for even thinking he could evade his grasp; the moment he took a chance, he was caught like a naughty child daring to run away into the woods.
A muffled voice could be heard echoing behind Mentis, but the words could not be deciphered. Again and again, it spoke, but the definition of the syllables was lost on the former cultist. Suddenly, Mentis felt himself being physically shook once more, but this time, it was not from the turbulence of the ship, but from two hands gripped firmly about his bony shoulders.
The cult’s fog of terror lifted slightly as Mentis heard Rex’s voice. Realising their imminent danger from crashing was more pressing that that of Axion’s minions, he did his best to return to the moment. He sensed the path of the falling ship and the dangerous angle The Janna was descending at.
“Ignore the sensors, just try to level us out and bring us down over there,” he pointed briefly out of the cockpit towards a dusty plain (which was upside down from their point of view) before having to grab the chair for support again.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Rex called, apparently content that he had drawn Mentis back into the situation at hand. "Uhh, ain't there perhaps some kinda Jedi trick you could do to maybe help us out, huh?!" He asked, speaking with rapid-fire words and a sense of urgency that almost took all of the wind out of his weak attempt at humour. "Y'know, what with this all probably being your fault, an' all." He shook his head. "Your old friends, I tell ya!"
“Are you serious?” the Rattataki snapped, an anger swelling in him that he had not felt since he had last stood in Axion’s halls, “In all this chaos? I cannot focus on…”
Another explosion cut short Mentis' response, and also ended Rex's initial attempt at levelling the Janna's spiralling course. Again, Brick and Reave added their squeals to the rumbling of the ship's failing hull and systems. In an uncharacteristic show of anger, Rex offered a brief blameful glare at Mentis, even as more fires began sparking within the few remaining panels in the cockpit. Fortunately, Rex did not indulge himself for long; he returned to strumming his hands across the control console in an effort to regain control of the ship. After a few seconds, even though the ship continued to toss and turn at troubling angles, the Janna had mostly flattened out - even as another explosion narrowly missed the starboard side, rocking its occupants about from the resultant shockwave.
"Your pain-cult chums seem pretty keen to play with you!" Rex growled. "We've got just about enough juice and altitude to get us around that outcropping, near that plain o' yours. If those dudes just have launchers, we should be able to get clear of their line o' sight."
Peeling himself up from the floor, Mentis hissed with pain and clutched his side, which had been thrown against a console. He looked about the cockpit at the disarray and panic; he could not function like this. The Force seemed inaccessible as they plummeted down into uncertainty.
“You won’t be able to scratch their ship,” Mentis shook his head dejectedly, “Not with whatever laser cannons you have on this rustbucket.”
Even amidst the chaos, screeching lasers and groaning machinery of his ship being torn apart, Rex managed to widen his eyes in insulted disbelief, pausing to glare at Mentis meaningfully. "That hurts, man. But besides, whoever said anything about shooting those death-lovin' kung?"
A sudden dark shape rushed past the window and everyone’s eyes flicked over in response. They were now much closer to the ground and the jagged mountains in this region came at them like rusty orange knives. They were still on course for the plain Mentis had identified when his mind was clearer, but the ship veered side to side like a drunkard and even a single impact could mean a sudden explosive demise for the crew of the Janna.
Suddenly, Mentis’ eyes widened as he sensed imminent danger in his blurry mind’s eye, “We’re goin’ to collide…” he exclaimed as he sprung himself towards the controls, batting them to one side, causing the ship to lurch violently over but not in time to completely miss a mountainside. Janna’s elongated underside clipped the rockface and even more panels exploded about them as they felt the weight of gravity increase upon them.
"You crazy-" Rex had started to say before he had realised what Mentis had done, but even though his pale-skinned saviour had managed to preserve their life, yet more schematics of the Janna were scrabbling across the last functioning terminals within the cockpit. Whole chunks were flashing red or were even missing, and the rest was shaded optimistically in life-threatening-dangerous-caution-orange. Again, Brick and Reave screamed in sync with one another, almost in tune to the high-pitched tune of the ship's impending demise.
The ship was now completely lost to them; the controls were not responding, with every stick and panel fused into place. Following on from the first clip along the underside of the ship, they scraped and bounced off and against several jagged outcroppings, and the ship was flung through the orange sky for one final moment of reprieve, arcing downwards towards an array of shattered and ancient stonework.
No more missiles or laser fire now found their way into the Janna's crumbling hull, not that it ultimately mattered as the whining of air became deafening. Korriban's stone-littered dusty surface grew rapidly larger beyond the cracked viewscreen, the time until gravity claimed its final victory over the ship and its occupants diminishing rapidly.
With only a few brief seconds left to convey his utter disappointment at the tragic turn of events that had unfairly befallen him and now threatened to end his almost-remarkable existence, Rex inclined mournful brown eyes over to the Dark Jedi beside him. "Mantis, I hate y-"
“I know, I know,” Mentis cut him off while gesturing towards the nearest seat, his body surging still from the near miss and the thought of their imminent doom, “I’ve wrecked everything. Just bloody brace for impact and you can tell it to my corpse!”
With that, there was one more second of gut-wrenching freefall before the sudden intense force of the solid ground and the resulting screeching of metal as the Janna’s outer hull attempted to shoulder the force of the impact and slow them down. Due to the shape of the ship, the cockpit was thrown awkwardly to one side; with the artificial gravity gone, everyone was pulled towards the ground and an unbuckled Brick flew down to the port side of the ship, narrowly missing a nasty collision with Rex’s head.
When the awful scraping of the ship had stopped, Janna was left ripped wide open with a shattered viewport, allowing a heavy red dust to swell into the cockpit and mix with the black smoke and fumes exuded from within, wrapping the limp life forms within in its cloudy embrace.
Some time later
With a jolting cough, Mentis awoke to the muted sound of an alarm and a piercing hiss from below. His chest was dreadfully bruised, still hanging tight against the seat straps he had urgently buckled around himself. He opened his eyes slowly, adjusting to the brightness of the planet’s surface and to the ache he felt all across his face and along his deep scar, which felt as though it had practically re-opened.
Directly beneath him, latched onto the port-side cockpit wall was Rex’s battered and dented droid, who was attempting to spray his flame suppressant up at the electrical fires that had popped up on multiple consoles around the room. He was struggling to reach some of the higher ones though; his magnetic clamps may have broken, preventing him from scaling the walls.
Summoning strength into his limp arms, Mentis reached over to his side and unclasped the buckle, leading to the sudden loss of his support in the chair. He crumpled out, reaching out in the Force to break his fall slightly but the awkward position he fell in still caused him tremendous pain in his abdomen as he dropped down to where Brick was working.
Gasping at the blunt pain he felt, Mentis proceeded to cough up a small amount of blood before propping himself up against the floor (which was now the wall). He looked up at the two bodies that still hung in their chairs: Rex was in much the same position he himself had been in, although his arm was caught under the strap, meaning it might be broken. He could not see much of Reave besides the thick wraps he wore as he had seemed to have retreated within them; hopefully that had helped to soften his landing. His wide-brimmed hat was buckled up with him too: Force-forbid he lose that.
“Rex!” Mentis shouted up at his smuggler companion, “Hey, Rex. Wake up!”
After a few more attempts from Mentis, Rex finally began mumbling something incoherent under his breath, although his eyes remained tightly closed for a few long seconds. The Human showed no other signs of regaining consciousness, even the aroma of smoke and melted metal doing little to rouse him. A dark, wide bruise could also be made out crowning his head, and a small cut was seeping blood alongside it.
A sudden thud drew Mentis' eyes aside, however, as he saw a bundle of wrappings now shifting about on the floor next to him, with the wide-brimmed hat perched atop them, signifying the true nature of this shifting pile of cloth. As expected, two downwardly-angled and cynical glowing orbs now peered out and up from under the hat at Mentis as Reave brought himself up to his full diminutive height. He brushed himself off as he rose, a gesture that was oddly casual in this unpleasant turn of events, but one that still carried the little sentient's usual air of disdain.
Satisfied he was now presentable post-crash, the angry Jawa's eyes turned from Mentis over to the prone Rex, although his minimalist expression was unchanging, no deeper note of care entering his shrill voice as he quickly babbled something vulgar in his native tongue. He positioned himself beneath Rex and placed his hands on his little hips, scowling in turn at Rex and then at Mentis. He shrugged almost sarcastically when Mentis made no move to do anything post his apparently-telling little-hands-on-hips position.
Shaking his head with exasperation, Mentis could not help but be somewhat sharp, “I’m sorry our situation is tiresome to you, Reave. I guess you should have figured by now…”
He coughed reflexively as the dust and smoke tickled his throat and then groaned at the exertion. He was angry: angry at the cult, angry at himself, angry at the universe for causing him pain. He had lived in anger all his life and so he let it take him in this moment. Spitting blood again, he let that bitterness and spite flow through him until it masked the pain in his body and filled him with the vigour to rise.
He got to his feet, releasing the grip on his pained chest, instead extending the arm upwards, while brushing Reave aside with the other, “Let me hasten things along for you, then.”
Unclasping Rex’s belt buckle, the Rattataki visualised the man’s descent in his fiery eyes, one still sunken and dilated from the deforming wound gifted to him by that faceless assassin back on Nar Shaddaa. The smuggler fell freely for a moment before being caught by the Dark Jedi’s telekinesis and held in the air like a child’s rag doll in his power.
The unconscious Human groaned again at the sudden movement, his clearly injured arm swinging more freely than it should, given its damaged state. Even so, Rex did not yet awake, held within Mentis' invisible grip.
Brick let out a low warble, punctuated with the occasional fizz of a malfunction, at sighting the Force user's practical show of power. Reave also appeared stalled by Mentis' action in procuring his Human companion, although he made no noise or actual show of confirmation or gratitude. Instead, he stared up at the floating smuggler, golden eyes untelling.
“Come!” Mentis barked towards the Jawa and the droid, “Leave this dead ship behind.”
With that, he strode with a masked limp across the control panel and out into the sun-baked plains of Korriban, with a floating Rex following behind him, as if tied by a string. He took several firm paces away from the ship, his boots crunching on shattered glass and loose sandy stone that had been redistributed by the crash. But he did not get far before a great weakness fell upon him once again and the weight of his injuries got the better of him. Both he and the suspended Rex dropped wordlessly down onto the dry ground.
This time, however, Rex awoke.
"Oh... ow..." He began, recoiling and curling around into a foetal position beside his fallen saviour, cradling his limbs and gut as his eyes very slowly began blinking themselves open. As awareness gradually returned to him, Rex winced and groaned again, raising a splayed hand with his good arm to block out some of the bright Korriban sun from his bleary, red eyes. "Kark... feel like I've loaded up on ten too many juri juices," he grumbled, eyes trying to focus in the brightness. "Tell me this is the morning after that Klatooine stag do of Joola's..."
Before any answer - sarcastic, Jawaese, binary or otherwise - was forthcoming, Rex had twisted slightly on the dusty ground, bringing Mentis into full view. Rex's eyes went briefly wide, and then sealed shut again. He mock-sobbed and placed an open palm over the wound his head. "Oh, kriffin' Sithspit. Korribund."
Rather than running over to welcome his friend back to the land of the conscious, Reave actually scurried across to Mentis' side and placed two small gloved hands on the Rattataki's side, shaking him in an effort to stir him. Only then did Rex open his eyes long enough to actually process what was happening (or rather, not happening) with Mentis.
With alarm broadening his features, Rex made an effort to spin himself up and round to get to Mentis, but paused for a few seconds as he discovered his injured arm for the first time since awakening. He hissed loudly, pausing in place momentarily to compose himself. Finally, with a large exhalation of frustrated breath - and now leaning on just one arm - Rex crawled over to Mentis and brought his face directly in front of the pale Near-Human's, albeit from what would be an upside-down perspective for both men.
"What did you do, idiot?" He demanded, rather than joining in with Reave's uncharacteristic show of concern, although the slightly breaking in his voice made plain his quiet worry for his newfound friend.
“I…I can’t…” muttered the Rattataki, who now lay shaking upon the ground, “Can’t escape.”
Rex let out an exasperated sigh, an affectation the man seemed to be using to conceal his concern for Mentis and his heartache over the crashed starship behind them. With a series of grunts and a multitude of dry coughs, Rex, alongside a little help from a bemused Reave (who almost hissed at hoisting some of the injured Human's weight), managed to haul himself upwards, taking only a moment to dust off his clothes before shuffling over beside Mentis.
"If there's one thing you shoulda learnt from me by now, kid," he said, reaching down and out with his good hand towards the former cultist, "is that there is always an escape route. You just gotta look in the right place."
With the assistance of the smuggler’s intact arm, Mentis managed to hoist himself up once again, although this time without the cushion of his dark emotions. He took a firm look at the man who still stood beside him, who had given him an arm even when his ship lay in pieces behind him because of Mentis’ doomed mission to find the Raptor crew.
“Rex… you’ve stood by me this long,” he spoke with a slight wheeze of anguish, “If you wish to part ways now, I understand. The cult will not harm you unless they find you with me.”
Rex looked either way into the distance, making a dramatic show of flinging his head from one side to the other. He even squinted, as if discerning something that might be of use, before finally letting his gaze rest on Mentis once more. "Tempting offer, Mantis, but I don't think there's much better for me on this here rock than walking on with you. Y'know, courtesy of you getting my darling Janna near split in two on a quarantined tombworld, an' all. Nope, I think we're a little past hoping your old master looks kindly upon me, should he find me trudging aimlessly through the dunes before I starve or melt, or that some ancient sandwyrm doesn't come and gobble me and Reave up when he sees an easy dinner. You just know there are sandwyrms here, all teeth and man-eating."
A long howl of wind carried across the nearby mountainous pass, grim and foreboding. A glimmer of panic flashed across Rex's face, but he quickly threw on a nervous smile when he realised Mentis was watching him. Briefly, he looked ahead to the one real route that was available to them, almost back along the path of their former trajectory into a nearby valley, before looking back to the smouldering wreck of his beloved vessel behind him.
A forlorn look overtook the Human's typically mirthful eyes, and his good limb seemed to dip. "Once we've found those mad monks of yours, and they shower you with riches when they realise how damn adorable you really are on the inside, you're bringing me back to fix my ship."
Stifling something between a chuckle and an exasperated sigh, Mentis ran both his hands over his pale bald head as he contemplated the thought of one final unlikely gambit with his even-more-unlikely friend. He looked down at Reave, who stared back at him with those glinting, questioning lights under his dark hood.
“Okay,” the Rattataki finally said, throwing his hands forward, “There’s no point in arguing out here.”
He twisted his head around to look at the landscape, quickly finding what he wanted, “Over this way then. Towards those monuments is where my monks will be…”
That’s where everyone will be he added internally, sensing more than one strand converging on The Valley of the Dark Lords this day. But, as they set off towards that point of convergence, that hope began to build once again. Hope that old ties could yet be broken.
TBC
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